#WELL. actually. fun directors commentary.

[radioelly]

early shuake v third sem shuake based on this meme:

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

Dorian made a face at her description, though he certainly couldn't fault her for it-she was right, every step of the planning process was just another stone in the path leading her to being shackled to that monster for the rest of her days...

It honestly made him shudder, imagining this woman, whom he happily considered a dear friend, this bright, vivacious, kind, free-spirited woman, doomed to a life being married to Pennyworth, having to bear him heirs (who would no doubt grow up to be horrid little brats like their father), forever chained to him, unable to escape...

...it was enough to make his blood boil, but he at least took solace in the fact that they were changing that.

In an effort to turn the conversation towards something happier and lighter, he asked her in genuine interest, "What do you see, in yours and Randall's futures, I mean. Would you like to work at his haberdashery with him, would you like to have children together, would you like to travel and see more of the country...anything of that sort, or...something else entirely?"

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

Water is Thicker Than Blood Chapter 48

he was actually looking at his SUIT!!!!!!! MWAH HAH HAH HAAA!

{Start} {Prev Next} {MasterPost}

Fourty Eight chapters. There is now twice as many chapters in this as I thought there would be before I gave up on typing out my original outline. I just read the doc back and im glad i didnt stop it at just 24 cuz that would have sucked ass, im glad i spent 57 weeks of my life writing this silly little story.

i stopped typing up the outline because i kept adding more things in the middle of the chapter outlines and i just kept getting more and more behind.

when im done writing this story, I think i would like to live stream going through all the chapters and adding director's commentary to them. If i do I'll definitely read out my outline as well, and y'all will see why I'm not writing this story as a fan fiction.

It would be fun putting on character voices, too, i can dig it. lmk if thats something yall would be interested in. Of course we have a loooooong way to go until i finish this story still, so ah,,, yeah keep tuned

dont run away from that TV! Wittb will be right back after these commercials. (the commercials last for a week)

anyway, this is the shirt that the one that Sabo picks up is inspired by:

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Deborah Kerr (Bonjour Tristesse, An Affair to Remember, The King and I)— For several decades she held the record for most Oscar nominations without a win (6 in total), and she was a prolific leading lady throughout the 40s and 50s. She's best known today for the romance An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant, and as the governess in The King and I. Many people have this erroneous perception of her as extremely prim, proper, and virginal, but this could not be further from the truth. When she first came to Hollywood under MGM she was typecast into boring decorative roles, but broke sexual boundaries for herself and Hollywood generally in From Here to Eternity, when she made out (horizontally!) with Burt Lancaster (on top of him!) in the famous Beach Scene. She went on to play many sexually conflicted women, a character type that would define most of her post- Eternity work. She continued to break Hays Code boundaries with Tea and Sympathy, which addresses homosexuality/homophobia head-on, and even did a topless scene in The Gypsy Moths 1969!! One of the only classic stars to do so. She deserves a more nuanced and frankly a hotter legacy than she currently has!!!

Ethel Merman (Anything Goes, Call Me Madam)— Possessed of a bold, brash voice, and an even bolder and brasher presence, Ethel Merman might be more well known for her stage roles, but she made several movies, and was bold and brash in them as well. Also I think if I don't submit her, she's going to come back and haunt me.

This is round 1 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut]

Ethel Merman:

You've gotta love any woman who got typecast as lead-MILF

Deborah Kerr:

I think she was one of my first crushes before I realised I was bi in The King and I when I watched it as a kid honestly. The kissing scene in From Here to Eternity is iconic for a reason. Actually tried to learn the accents for the characters she was playing if they weren't English which is more than pretty much anyone else was doing then. Played very restrained characters who frequently seemed to be desperate not to be so restrained. Did horror movies without venturing into hagsploitation tropes. Gave Marni Nixon the credit she deserved for her share of the singing in The King and I.

Anne Larsen is a peak late 1950s bisexual with big MILF energy. Have you seen the behind the scenes pics of her wearing a suit?? Have you????? Vote Deb as Anne Larsen.

Nominated for an Oscar six (6) times and never won, but besides her having actual talent (hot), and besides her looking Like That (very hot, also beautiful), she was always playing women who are, like, crazy repressed. Which makes it fun and easy for me to read these characters as queer. Icon!!!! You know what's hot? Playing ambiguously gay in vintage Hollywood.

Her face and talent and body, yes, ofc, duh. But also!!! Her HANDS!!!! I may be but a simple lesbian, but she is the best hactor (hand actor) that ever lived and that's HOT! For propriety's sake I feel I must redact a large portion of my commentary on this subject. Anyway. She's hot in her most famous roles (mentioned above), and also some of her sexiest hacting is on display in An Affair to Remember (her hand on the bannister when Cary Grant kisses her off-screen??? HELLO???), Tea and Sympathy (when she's trying to persuade Tom not to go out and she keeps flexing her hands like she wants to reach out to him but can't??? ALLY BEHAVIOR! WE STAN!), and The Innocents (which opens and closes with extended shots of her hands bc director Jack Clayton was also an ally and he did that for ME). Much of her appeal also lies in the fact that she often played deeply repressed characters and you know what's hot? When those uptight characters finally unravel. It's sexy. It's cathartic. It's erotic. Plus, she's beautiful to look at in both black & white and technicolor, and the more of her films you see, the more you can't help but fall in love!

Literally is in thee most famously sexy scene of all time (or maybe just during the hays code era which is what we're talking about HELLO), which is the beach scene with Burt Lancaster in from here to eternity. To quote a tumblr post of a screen capture of a tweet of a video of joy behar on the view: "y'know, there used to be movies where they were kissing on the beach... From Here to Eternity. They're kissing-- Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are Kissing on the Beach and then the WAVES crash!! You know exactly what they did!"

She might have a reputation of being chaste and virginal or whatever, but we all know it's the quiet ones who are certifiable FREAKS

[anthurak]

One of my favorite things about Control is just how completely and utterly nuts/bonkers/GONE the FBC is as one of these ‘secret government blackops’ groups.

Like this is a trope we’re all fairly familiar with at this point; some secret government organization formed to monitor, contain and research all kinds of weird shit and keep it secret from the public. Also they may or may not have kinda gone totally rogue somewhere along the way and might now answer only to themselves at this point in a ‘who watches the watchers?’ commentary on the need for oversight.

But the more you find out about the Federal Bureau of Control, the more it becomes clear they just so utterly past ANY of that by the time the game begins. And have been for basically the last fifty some odd years.

Like here is a basic overview of the FBC that you learn within the first thirty or so minutes of the game: They are a secret government organization dedicated to the containment, cataloguing and research of supernatural artifacts and events. They are headquartered in what they call ‘The Oldest House’, a tall, imposing yet utterly nondescript building in the middle of New York City that is literally impossible for anyone to enter or even notice unless they already know about it. And the interior of the building is actually a twisting extradimensional labyrinth that also opens up to other dimensions/realities and might actually be the World Tree Yggdrasil. It also kind of hates any technology made in the last twenty years. And apparently Number 2 Pencils.

Oh, and the FBC doesn’t really report to the US Government. They report to a floating, inverted black pyramid that exists in a space outside of known reality that might also be the collective human subconscious. The pyramid is colloquially referred to as ‘The Board’ and they are an extradimensional entity/group of entities that appoints the Director of the FBC via the use of a physics-defying geometric gun called ‘The Service Weapon’ that is probably Excalibur/Mjolnir/every other legendary weapon in human myth. They also speak in word-salads and probably know they are in a video game.

See, back in 1964 when the FBC first discovered The Oldest House, they basically decided ‘WOW, this place is cool! Let’s make it our new headquarters!’ and promptly moved in. This was also when the current Director at the time found the Service Weapon within The Oldest House, made contact with/was chosen by The Board and from the point on the FBC really hasn’t answered to the US Government anymore.

Also, the Government basically doesn’t even know the Bureau even EXISTS anymore. Remember how The Oldest House has this kind of ‘Perception Filter’ that prevents almost anyone from entering it or even noticing it, which is how basically nobody can find it despite the fact that it is right in the middle of New York City? Well, after they moved in and became effective ‘residents’ of the house, this filter started applying to the FBC itself. They basically CAN’T be noticed or remembered at this point by anyone who isn’t part of the organization. The reason this secret organization can operate entirely off the grid and can’t be tracked is because they literally have freaky extradimensional reality-warping covering their tracks.

This is what I meant when I said that the FBC is just so far GONE. At this point, the FBC is itself a crazy, supernatural thing in and of itself.

Other fun details about the FBC include:

The Bureau facilities in The Oldest House are not powered by coal, oil or nuclear power. No, instead the lights are kept on by a former director who went a tad power-mad and lost control of his pyrokinesis, so the Bureau locked him up in a giant ‘Sarcophagus Containment’ unit and now use him as a power-generator.  He also sometimes talks through the waste-disposal furnace to try and get people to bring him human sacrifices.

The maintenance sector of the FBC includes an area called the ‘Black Rock Quarry’. The so called ‘black rock’ is an extra-dimensional mineral that, among other things, blocks and dampens supernatural effects and abilities. Needless to say, the Bureau mines the stuff extensively. Now, despite being within The Oldest House, the Black Rock Quarry is an open-top quarry. To space.

One of the ways Bureau personnel get around is via pull-strings that show up all over The Oldest House. Pull a string three times and you are transported to the Oceanview Motel, a quaint little motel that probably exists outside of known reality because no one has ever been able to actually go or see outside the motel. Once you’re there, you just ring the bell on the front desk three times, do some random task and procure a room key. The key opens a door, but only one with an inverted black pyramid. From there, you pull another string and are transported back to somewhere else in The Oldest House. So basically a rather convoluted teleportation system. There are also doors with other symbols that probably go to other realities, but the Bureau hasn’t figured out how to open them. Though one does seem to lead to a void of malevolent darkness that feeds off human creativity and is currently holding one Alan Wake.

Also, the bureau’s janitor is probably a Finnish Sea God.

[david-talks-sw]

The Sith don't want peace.

I've seen some fans use the below quote by Lucas in the Revenge of the Sith director's commentary to frame Darth Sidious/Sheev Palpatine as "evil but with well-meaning intentions".

"Lord Sidious thinks he's bringing peace to the galaxy because there's so much corruption and confusion and chaos going on. Now he's gonna be able to straighten everything out, but the price the galaxy is gonna have to pay for it is way too much."

And uh... no.

Sidious thinking that him ruling the galaxy will bring about peace as a byproduct and him wanting to bring about peace are two very different things.

He's not doing what he does for altruistic reasons. He's a selfish dick who is saying that technically the galaxy won't be fighting anymore and the corruption in the Senate will be quelled... because of course it will be, they'll all be under his thumb in his totalitarian regime.

So Palpatine is not lying, but he's not being genuine either. And that's his whole schtick.

"The Jedi are holding you back, Anakin." Yes, because Anakin has a tendency of flying off the handle, mainly because you enable him to give in to his darker instincts, Sheev!

"The Jedi are trying to take over!" Temporarily? Yeah. Because you're a dictator who orchestrated a war and cemented division across the galaxy, and everyone behind you is corrupt to the bone, SHEEV!

He's not Thanos or Killmonger, he's not the "if you think about it, he's actually a good guy who took it too far" villain.

This is a modern myth with a binary view of good and evil. He's Iago, Jafar, Freezer. He's not "gray", he's the classic "he's evil because he can be" villain. The Emperor is the Devil. As stated by Lucas himself:

"Palpatine is the Devil. There’s no fall from grace there. He’s the evil one." - Starlog Magazine #337, 2005

And the Sith are not pragmatists or people who try to bring positive change using their passion. They're not "free thinkers" who "follow their own path". They're not "religiously persecuted for pursuing knowledge beyond the dogma of the Jedi".

And this battle between the Jedi and Sith, thousands years prior to the films ⬇️...

... it didn't happen the way it's shown in the comic panel. That's Sidious showing horrific unreliable visions to Maul - a child - to indoctrinate him into hating the Jedi.

You know who does that? A cult. That's what the Sith are.

Hell, their code was partly based on Mein Kampf.

The whole "the Jedi 'limit' but the Sith 'embrace' and that's why we're being hunted down" line is just that. A line.

It's what the Sith tell themselves to justify the fact that they fucked with Dark Magic, got corrupted, and are now making it everyone else's problem.

"The Sith are people who are very self-centered and selfish. [They] learned how to manipulate both sides of the Force, and then they fell into the trap of being corrupted by the dark side." - Sci-fi Online, 2005

Which is why the Jedi step in, to stand up to them.

"The Jedi are the enemy of the Sith because the Sith want to dominate the galaxy, to control everything, and for a thousand years they have had a plot against the Jedi." - Sci-fi Online, 2005

The Sith just wanna subdue and control everyone around them, including the Force itself, to fashion the galaxy in their image.

"The end game for the Sith was to bring the world into a very selfish, self-centered, greedy, evil place, as opposed to a compassionate place." - James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction, 2018

So sure, have fun with your The Old Republic OC, go to town.

But when it comes down to it, when we're talking about the intended narrative (I'm looking at you, The Acolyte):

The Sith don't care about peace, they're literal religious extremists.

While some Sith may say they're misunderstood and some may justify themselves as being altruistic... at the end of the day, they're objectively not. They're greedy, power-hungry and self-centered.

They're the anti-theme to Star Wars' theme of "be compassionate".

[bengiyo]

I am curious for your perspective on the way the OF creators are interacting with fans and have even admitted to editing the show based on fan reactions. It strikes me as an unusual level of interaction and capitulation, though of course TV is a live medium that is nearly always responsive to reactions to some extent. My preference is for a lot less of this kind of thing, but I know you have experience with direct interaction with media creators and have found it enhances your experience sometimes. What do you make of how these dynamics are showing up in OF and the effect it’s having on the show?

TV and Critic Background

So, I am actually the worst person to talk to if you think the creators should be quiet about their work, because I really enjoy talking to directors, producers, actors, cinematographers, and especially editors about their work. I often go to film festivals just to talk to the creators about their processes.

I've also been in the TV space a really long time, and I am used to this kind of behavior. I don't think a lot of folks who are in BL are used to being in the process of TV itself, and I think a lot of people have let the Netflix binge model inform the way they view TV. TV is not like movies. When you get a movie, you are seeing the end product of filming, editing, test screenings, re-edits, etc. TV is usually only an episode or two ahead of the viewers.

It's extremely normal for a show to respond to feedback when characters test well. The 100 did this with Jasper. He was supposed to die in the pilot when that spear entered his chest, but he tested well with audiences so they revived him.

Fun Fact: This is why Kiseki: Dear to Me didn't just move their release schedule up when episode 8 was leaked early. They probably weren't finished assembling episode 9.

I followed Sense8 through its entire development process all the way from rumors and then J. Michael Stracynski's posts about it, to the things Lana and Lily said about it, to the commentary from the cast.

I have a special hatred for Rick Behrman over Star Trek.

I absolutely hate Russel T. Davies because of Cucumber.

I bailed on Supernatural because of the way the writers condescended to us at comicon after killing Kevin.

I know some fans are upset about the idea that scenes they wanted to see got cut, but I was there for Noah Galvin opening his fucking mouth to talk shit about other actors at ABC who were playing beloved gay characters and that subsequently getting The Real O'Neals canceled. The show had a very short second season and I feel forever salty about that.

What does this mean for Jojo and Ninew and Den?

I actually think Jojo, Den, and Ninew are fine. I don't think they usually poopoo on valid reads from what I've seen, and mostly they're having fun with the fans, too. I just don't think people are used to the creators being so honest about how feedback affects the editing process.

I think this is the first time we've had a big show in a while where the creator was fairly active on socials about the show. Aof and Au are usually pretty quiet when their shows are airing, and only give small tidbits while they show is airing. Jojo is silly and likes to play with fans. Den is feisty and has a gay agenda to pursue.

Truly, I don't think Jojo and friends are that bad about anything with this show, because they're mostly just laughing and stating things that are obvious to people who pay attention to how the sausage is made.

Shipping

That being said, the biggest struggle OF is having is shipping. The FK girlies are so loud and their heavy breathing has likely influenced the way Jojo and friends decided to write Ray. The FB girlies are so into them that it's made Jojo and them dial back some of their Top content because the audience hates him so much. Only Boston and Nick feel like they've made it through the shipping gamut intact because Neo and Mark aren't bringing a bunch of preexisting shippers to the table.

Coming off of episode 10, you can see this plainly with the nasty4nasty dynamic with Boston and Nick. The emotional core of their dynamic feels true, even down to the way their moments in the store mirror their first interactions again. Boston came in for service about his phone and intentionally showed Nick something on it.

I don't think Jojo has ever had to work with multiple acting pairs that were big branded pairs prior to this, and this is only his second time really dealing with that. With Never Let Me Go, Pond and Phuwin weren't that big yet, and he wasn't threatening their ship with anything complicated. OF is challenging for people who just watch BL as fap material and have to deal with their faves not being easy people to parse.

As usual, we go back to that post that goes around all the time, thought I think the OP deleted it:

"Never ever be normal about fictional characters but please GOD be normal about the people who play them, I am begging you" -tumblr user mantorokk-writes

[chiropteracupola]

now that I have finished watching All The Sharpe That There Is, we have made a Tier List of our Very Strong Opinions. behold.

further (condensed) commentary from yours truly and usual partner-in-crime @sailorpants under the readmore:

S: Eagle, Company, Battle

Eagle: 'the plot of this one makes sense,' 'it really does show (well!) that this was the first book,' 'one of the ones we rewatch,' 'a good episode of television!'

Company: 'Pete Postlethwaite is a great actor -- Hakeswill made me want to throw up,' 'the lads and also the horrors,' 'genuine emotions were elicited,' 'well-established team dynamic at this point'

Battle: 'bad men! good men! beautifulest ladies!,' 'if Perkins must die then at least he gets a really cool death and to be bridal-carried by Harper and mourned by everybody,' 'the fucked-up love square,' 'plot hangs together well,' 'this episode has the most women of any Sharpe episode: four,' 'I have watched this episode three times', 'these rewatches were with lust (for the beautifulest ladies)'

A: Enemy

Enemy: 'decently written,' 'all the lads are there,' 'type of enemy Hakeswill becomes isn't as compelling and the inconsistency brings down both his episodes,' 'egregious women-tossing,' 'it is cool that there are other women; however Sharpe would not do That,' 'French people allowed to be interesting as a treat,' 'Sharpe and Teresa SOULMATES quote [screams]'

B: Rifles, Honour, Sword, Siege, Waterloo

Rifles: 'bit of a rough start,' 'the first half is good and then it gets Weird... phobias of sorts are In There', 'TERESA!'

Honour: 'extremely cool fights in this one,' 'Ramona!!,' 'some of the best Chosen Men banter in the whole series,' 'fake-Sharpe's-death plotline is quite well done,' 'unfortunate nonsense'

Sword: 'epic Harris moments cannot earn this episode a better ranking,' 'good casting and the background characters are cool,' 'the Lass deserved much better than this episode gave her'

Siege: 'oh, the chemical warfare episode,' 'they've learned to workshop their plans since Honour,' 'made me believe that Sharpe and Jane's relationship could have worked out, 'plot hangs together well (rare in a Sharpe episode)'

Waterloo: 'the scale of it doesn't quite sit right,' 'pretty good episode,' 'Paul Bettany is uncanny and I don't like whatever it is is going on with him,' 'getting the gang back together for one last Lads Adventure!'

C: Regiment, Mission, Revenge, Justice, Challenge

Regiment: 'more time with the Chosen Men could have saved this,' 'Company was a better 'the army sucks' episode,' 'the wet soupy episode'

Mission: 'it takes me two minutes to remember what happens in this one whenever I think about it,' 'again epic Harris moments cannot save this episode,' 'quite a high SCUM score,' '[impact font] MARK STRONG'

Revenge: 'ehhhhhh,' 'Lucille's nail-gun is the only thing that is cool and fun,' 'weird vibes about it,' 'Ducos' Bond-villain stuff is needless escalation,' 'Frederickson's ending is fun'

Justice: 'he's a cop in this one,' 'don't like Hagman's mustache,' 'Jane plotline no good, '[from sailorpants] when I actually watch this one I'm gonna have THOUGHTS'

Challenge: 'would rank this higher but I do have receipts on the fact that I was having a Bad Time throughout,' 'Toby Stephens makes this worth watching,' 'almost everything else about it is bad,' 'high points in every SCUM category,' 'four whole named plot-relevant speaking-role-having women! haven't had that many since Battle!,' 'TOBY STEPHENS CUNTSERVACIOUS LITTLE OUTFITS'

D: Gold, Peril

Gold: 'we don't need to discuss why we are ranking it like this'

Peril: 'the secret good Peril that lives in my head is so cool but unfortunately it is not real,' 'they are trying to have Themes and it is not working,' 'casting director is now finding conventionally attractive men instead of weirdguys with interesting faces,' 'Daniel Deever should have his own entire show but unfortunately this is a show about Richard Sharpe (I would write about him so much if I felt that I could do him justice but therein lies the Research Pit)' 'most important point is that he has a locket with Antonia's picture but the rest I could take or leave and I will probably leave it'

[lets-try-some-writing]

HI

Directors commentary on either of these c:

Why not BOTH.

Swap AU

The Swap AU came into being when I found myself unhappy with my original Swap AU concept. The first one was rushed and I had absolutely no joy in my soul while writing it. The requester for the original was rather pushy and I just wanted it to be done and over with. So I decided to try again and write an alternate swap I could actually see happening. This Swap AU was actually fun to play with and I had a grand time running through the potential political changes that I just never got to writing about.

I actually wanted to mess with it more, but upon its original posting, the AU was not taken with much enthusiasm so I steamrolled onward with other ideas that were sticking. Although as a side note, Megatron in the swap AU 100% has reading glasses and I take no criticism. Orion for his part is not a short king, but he is an averaged sized buff dude and it puts everyone on edge when this normal looking guy comes busting out with an axe.

Twin AU

Let me just say that this AU was the start of my obsession with Optimus and Orion Pax being different people. Sure it wasn't actually an AU based on that premise, but the foundation was there. I saw some art of SG Orion Pax and SG Optimus Prime and it spawned a little worming idea that screamed for there to be two bots sharing a reputation. So then I just yoinked the Sunstreaker and Sideswipe split spark bond thing and chucked it in there.

This is actually an AU I REALLY love, but again, never got around to writing a lot for because it was not received particularly well on here. However a tidbit about the AU here is that Orion Pax was treated way worse than I implied in my writing initially. Optronix treated him like absolute garbage, and so now that his secret is out and the team know he isn't Optronix deep down, he is going to fall back to old habits. He may have been plotting the downfall of his twin, but Orion was loyal until the very end. He was trained to be the perfect attendant. Quiet, submissive, and unquestioning.

That will rear its head now that he feels he is not protected by the reputation of his twin. It was almost easier for him to just pretend he was Optronix and own his twin's sins. Now he has to deal with the people who thought he was brutally murdered by his sibling millennia ago.

[sizzlingsheepcheesecake]

⭐️⭐️

For the director’s commentary thingy :)

Also some stars just for you because I fucking love your fics 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thank you so much for the ask! I hope this is interesting, you mentioned wanting to hear about 'The camera speaks the truth that I couldn't' so I'm just gonna ramble a bit about the before and after!

I love outsider POVs of relationships, you might notice I nearly always have some form of the other characters commenting on/noticing/walking in on my ships in my fics haha. So I loved the thought of seeing bokris through Damon's eyes a little. I also loved the potential for lots of sexual tension in the photoshoot set up. And Damon being an absolute menace with his Instagram flirting was so fun, and I also love him crushing on them and describing how hot they are separately. I especially loved the idea of them acting so coupl-y and having such tension that Damon thought they were dating, but they weren't. On that note, for some context on their dynamic before the shoot: when they say they've kissed 2.5 times before the shoot, I imagine those kisses as: the 'maybe it doesn't count' new year's eve kiss when Kris was about to turn 17, a drunk kiss when they were around 20 that I imagine happening maybe before they fell asleep when they crashed at the same house after a party, and when Bojan pulled Kris out to the smoking area of the gay club the first night with Damon. Basically all of them happened with the safety blanket of drink/the NYE excuse, and plausible deniability. I don't think they ever talked about any of them the next day. In some of my other fics Bojan in particular struggles with his sexuality, but I don't think this was an issue here, I think they just were so close as friends that they didn't want to mess that up and were afraid to go there, and felt more shame (although that's too strong a word) about the fact that it was eachother than the fact that they were both guys. They definitely knew they were close to each other in a different way than the rest of the band, and I think they leaned into that, allowed themselves to push those boundaries and indulge in the extra affection without actually facing it or being brave enough to talk about or name it. The rest of the band knew as well, that Bojan and Kris went together, that they were a package deal, that there was something deeper there. I think they teased them occasionally, but it had been going on for so long and was so normal and taken for granted that they almost stopped noticing it. It wasn't even a question that they would share hotel rooms, sit beside eachother, etc. But when Bojan kissed a girl at a club or Kris flirted with a waiter who gave him his number at lunch one day the whole band found it pretty jarring and uncomfortable. And I think the whole Bojere thing at Eurovision was actually quite stressful for everyone in the band, even though they're pretty sure Bojan never actually slept with him. After the photoshoot, between the first shoot and the coming out shoot, I imagine the timeline went something like this: Bojan and Kris went back to their apartment and locked themselves in the room for like three days to just fuck, constantly. I think after finally allowing themselves to go there after literal years of tension they felt they had a lot of time to make up for and also just couldn't keep their hands to themselves. The others were happy for them but also kind of disgusted, and grudgingly impressed by their stamina and the fact they weren't seeming to get bored of eachother any time soon. I imagine some sort of sex toy being delivered in pretty non discreet packaging and Jure throwing it at them with his hand covering his eyes lol. I think there was no slow transition to a relationship, once they finally admitted those feelings they were immediately boyfriends and didn't even think to label it until one of the band members asked them. I do think they probably kept it quiet from everyone except the band and Damon for a month or two though, and then told family and friends. When they were ready to come out publicly they immediately thought of Damon doing the shoot, and I think they also immediately had the discussion of a threesome and were both enthusiastic and it was almost an unspoken expectation they had anyway.

Thanks again and if anyone wants more info let me know! :) <3

[nyoomfruits]

yes mate directors commentary please for the baby au - have you watched three men and a baby yet lol

(and possibly your thoughts on the magic helmet au?)

i haven't yet actually!!! it's still on The List though so maybe soon!!

also since you didn't specify a scene i thought it might be fun to do some scenes from the cutting room floor so here are all the max pov scenes i wrote pre writing this fic:

“I think she’s just tired,” Seb says, as Julie continues to wail loudly, beating her little fists against his chest. “Or she might just need her daddy.” Seb glances at Charles, who’s talking to Pierre a few feet away from them.

Max, who’d also been staring at Charles for completely different reasons, glances back at Seb. “Hm?” He says, and then when he notices Julie’s displeasures, reaches forward. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. Here, let me take her.” 

“I don’t think that will wo-“ Seb starts, but then Julie spots Max, and she immediately starts making grabby hands for him, and Seb hands her over with an astonished look on his face. When she’s comfortably settled in Max’s arms, Julie seems to calm considerably, burying her face in his neck and letting out pitiful little hiccups instead. “Or maybe it does,” Seb says, raising an eyebrow. He glances at Charles, who’s still talking to Pierre and then back at Max, cocking his head to the side. “You know what. It makes sense, actually.” He says, rather cryptically.

Max, who’d been cooing gently at Julie and bouncing her up and down to get her to calm down, glances at Seb. “What?”

“Nothing,” Seb says, a knowing grin on his face. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, I’m going to head off. Say hi to Charles from me, yeah?” And then he’s gone, leaving Max to stare after him with a confused look on his face, Julie now contently asleep in his arms.

--

Charles gets rushed into an emergency meeting on Friday, just as they’re making their rounds through the paddock, leaving Max standing in front of the Ferrari motorhome next to that awful Ferrari themed stroller, Julie gurgling happily in her seat.

“All right,” Max says, looking around a little unsure. “Might as well go for a walk, I guess?” Julie mumbles something unintelligible and hits the lion plushie she’s holding against the side of the stroller. Max takes that as a yes, and starts pushing the stroller in the direction of the garages.

He doesn’t realize his mistake until he’s passing the Red Bull motorhome, and Christian steps out. There’s an almost comical pause as Max freezes and Christian takes in him, Julie, and then the stroller. He raises an eyebrow.

Max squints at him. “Don’t you even start.”

Christian holds up his hands in surrender, “I’m not saying anything,” he says. “Just let me know if this,” he gestures at Max and Julie and then in the general direction of the Ferrari motorhome, “thing you have going on ever gets more serious. I’ll get you a Red Bull branded one.”

He disappears before Max can say anything, and Max curses under his breath. He really has to start trying to convince Charles to get a different stroller. Seriously, what’s wrong with a classic black one? Hell, he’ll take a bubble gum pink one over this horrible red monstrosity.

“Bah,” Julie loudly announces, and throws her plushie on the floor. Max can’t help but agree with her, and then goes to pick the plushie back up again.

[angelinthefire]

Solitudes: director's commentary

So this is a thing I do now, post commentary on my fics. I've been sitting on this fic for a long time and I'm excited to finally talk about it!

Read the fic here

Chapter 1

The title of this fic is a reference to “Two Solitudes”, a novel which I’ve never read, but which is a point of reference for Canadian political science, about the fundamental division between Quebec and English Canada, and the two never being able to connect or understand the experience of the other.  And that’s one of the inspirations for this fic, exploring the degree to which Dean and Cas understand each other and misunderstand each other, and their attempts to communicate what they want from their relationship.  I do believe that Dean and Cas understand each other and connect and relate to each other to a large extent, and far better than some fans give them credit for. Sometimes I see the “Don’t go/Ask me to stay” dynamic exaggerated to an extent that I believe no longer makes sense, given their friendship.  At the same time, there is an underlying tension and disconnect between them. They don’t have a perfect understanding of each other. And that still matters quite a lot. 

The other source of inspiration for this is that I haven’t written anything where Dean is the one with a handle on his feelings and wants to initiate something, since like 2013. And that I’ve never written anything set in season 12, despite that season having the perfect setup for Dean and Cas getting together.  And I was thinking, how do I push things further than what happened on the show? I usually like my fic to feel very situated in canon, and since Dean and Cas didn’t actually get together in s12, something else would have to happen, something to push Dean over the edge. Something that would also push Cas to make a realization.  So that’s how I ended up with the idea to lock Dean and Cas in a room together, with Dean thinking that Cas is dead, and Cas unable to do anything but watch. In my head, the alternate title for this story is “The Pear Jiggler fic”. Just stick them in a box and fuck with them. We also often talk about how Cas never gets to see how Dean reacts when he dies, so that was a fun thing to do as well.  And I just love a good bottle episode. Something that’s just all character-driven. 

In terms of characterization, one thing that’s very important to me is that Cas knows that Dean cares about him. He’s not some poor soul who thinks he’s on thin ice all the time, or thinks that he has to be useful to be loved. He understands that Dean cares, but the misunderstanding is the degree to which Dean needs him in his life.  Cas does have a drive to be useful, to solve problems, but it’s internally motivated. He has to prove that he’s useful for himself, not for Dean. Even when Dean gets pissed at him, Cas doesn’t take it too, too personally, because he does still know that he’s important to Dean.

For Dean, the emphasis is really on the way he retreats when threatened, emotionally. When he behaves badly, it’s partially because he’s worried, but also as a defence mechanism. He only puts words to his feelings when he has nothing left to lose. 

It’s been a while since I’ve written a version of Cas that wasn’t fully tuned in to his feelings for Dean. One of the more fun things about this angsty fic was having Cas thinking about Dean wistfully, and not imagining that Dean might be in love with him, or that his feelings are anything other than friendship.  I guess the other option was to write mutual pining, Dean and Cas both being aware of their feelings but neither realizing the other feels the same way. But for me, the realization that what they feel is love is a really fun part of the story, so I wanted that moment for at least one of them.  Of course, Dean isn’t fully there yet either. Like he knows, but he’s not 100% there. But it’s just caution that’s holding him back. A lot of the time in fic, when it’s Dean’s POV and he knows he’s in love with Cas, there’s a whole big self esteem thing that holds him back. And I never really buy that. Plus it’s unnecessary.

I’ve noticed that in a lot of my fics, I get Dean out of the driver’s seat of the Impala, or out of the Impala entirely. It is about getting him into a new situation, making him feel off-kilter in some way. Switching up the status-quo. 

I’ve been playing the Sims quite a bit, mostly building homes, and therefore looking at a lot of fancy real estate postings for inspiration. I find brutalist architecture quite compelling in its own right. I wanted a setting that feels foreboding, but still like a place where someone might actually have lived. A room with very little in it that could provide distraction. And a space where light plays an important role, which it does in brutalist buildings, I think. I do find it unlikely that a desk and chair would have survived, but Dean needed something to smash up, so. And the fountain wall is there to create a sense that the building is being taken over by something, it has something growing in it. 

The monster itself isn’t consciously based on anything. It’s what it needs to be for the story. Whatever lore I made up only exists to support its function in the story. Even the way Sam kills it, just serves to underline that it’s unique and powerful, and therefore able to keep Cas contained.

Chapter 2

I didn’t have the idea to do the split-screen until I was well into planning the fic. To emphasize the division between Dean and Cas, their mismatched perspectives. For a second I considered just having two unbroken columns, so that the reader would have to decide when/if to go back and forth, but that would have been kind of confusing. And ultimately, Cas is reacting to Dean, so you need to keep going back to Dean to understand Cas.  I wrote Dean’s side first, as the independent variable. Deciding where to break, and switch to Cas was a bit of a back-and-forth process, because it had to work both in terms of story and in terms of rhythm.  One thing I liked about this is that I didn’t have to decide whose POV to write in. Unless a story is strictly one character’s POV I usually plan out scenes from both of their perspectives and then decide which one is better to take for the story, and sometimes that can be kind of tough. 

Of course, the entire conceit of this scenario is that it’s a metaphor for their relationship. Or it takes the tension in their relationship and brings it to the next level. They’re together, but there’s something preventing them from fully connecting. They understand each other, but they misunderstand each other at the same time. And it’s by making that disconnect physical that they start to kind of be able to deal with it. Because it gives Cas a perspective on Dean that he didn’t have before. They don’t fully resolve their problems by the end, and to be honest I wouldn’t want them to. But they make some progress. 

I had fun with the imagery for this. Dean and Cas sharing the same space, being separated by light, and by illusion.

Dean’s alcoholism figures very heavily in this. But it is not addressed as a problem for him to overcome. I neither feel equipped to write a story about alcoholism per se, nor do I want to. A running theme throughout a few of my fics is that Dean and Cas do not fix each other. They keep being the same fucked up guys. And I think getting Dean to a place where he wants to deal with his substance abuse problems would require a lot more story behind it. 

The withdrawal is there to make things that much more horrible for Dean, not to actually deal with alcoholism as an issue.. And it adds an extra sense of threat. I didn’t do a ton of research on what happens when someone goes through withdrawal, I just looked up a timeline for symptoms (it can start after just six hours! I didn’t know that before). And I confirmed that someone could die from withdrawal. 

For Dean, chapter 2 is about making him sit with his misery. Unlike every other time he’s lost Cas on the show, there’s nothing to distract him here. And that’s one of the things that pushes him to vocalize his thoughts and feelings..  As well, anger, guilt, fear and love are all very much intertwined for Dean. And that’s accentuated by the situation. So he says “I hate you” before he says “I love you.” But then, as his motivation to survive kind of drains away, his defensive instincts do as well. 

For Cas, it was about forcing him to accept that things are outside of his control. There’s no more desperate moves, he can’t throw himself on his sword. Like Dean, there’s nothing to distract him, he’s forced to stop and reflect on what’s happening. He has to face what he means to Dean.  When Cas says “I’m not worth it” - that’s something that came up when I was freewriting dialogue and it just felt right. But I spend zero time unpacking it. Again, it’s one of those things - Dean and Cas are both fucked up, they both have their problems, and this experience doesn’t change that. In fact, it probably makes him worse. Another aspect of Cas’ powerlessness is how he relates to his human body. Not having it, or not being able to use it, makes him more possessive over it. 

Still on the topic of Dean and Cas not being able to fix each other, you see that when Dean says he’s in love with Cas, and it finally clicks for Cas. It doesn’t solve anything.  I did really want to make the point that the two of them being in love doesn’t change anything in terms of their plans or obligations. And it doesn’t really change much about how they relate to each other either. I’ve said before that their friendship and their romance are indistinguishable imo. And the other side of that is that Dean and Cas are both more than their relationship, and the pressures and stresses they face mostly come from outside their relationship (which is a fact that fans lose sight of sometimes). Whether they’re officially In Love or not, they want to be together, but there’s other forces, both internal and external, keeping them apart. 

I hope Dean lying down with Cas’ dead body works. It’s super melodramatic, but it’s also kind of gruesome and I like that. I also love the idea of Cas being jealous of the illusion of his dead body. 

Chapter 3

A dynamic that I really like in storytelling is when The Big Event in the story is not the thing that pushes the characters towards the resolution, but it primes them for the next little thing tipping them over. I do that here, and I kind of do that in Life Skills too. It feels more real to me, and it creates more space to explore the ending imo. So Dean tries to go back to normal!

The fight in the parking lot was probably the scene that was the most fun to write. Like it’s still frustrating and angsty, but it’s kind of funny too. 

And yeah, Cas still feels trapped. The repetition of the gray and green imagery reflects that. He still feels powerless, and it just takes one more shove to get him to open up about it.

Dean has a bit of an impulse to be controlling here. First of all, because I do think it’s in character, but also because I think it’s fun. Like I don’t like to go super-toxic with Dean and Cas, but there’s a measure of toxicity. Again, they keep being fucked up. For Dean, I just touch on it briefly, but I think one aspect of his upbringing is that love has to be proven. Like, he loved his father, so he did what was asked of him. If Cas loved Dean, then he would do what Dean asked of him - this is the main concept that underlies my read of Dean’s reaction to Cas collaborating with Crowley in s7.  For Cas’ part, he doesn’t really register that there’s anything wrong with Dean’s behaviour, or he reads in the best intentions. Which is a fun idea to me. 

I really grappled with whether or not to have a sex scene as part of the resolution. It felt formulaic to do so. There wasn’t a story that I wanted to tell with their sex. But on the other hand, I know there would have been a time when I would have been disappointed to read something like this and not get a sex scene out of it. They go through such intense emotions, it only seems fair to the reader. Ultimately it came down to the fact that there wasn’t anything else that I wanted to say about Dean and Cas. 

I kind of grappled with the end in general. Usually, I write fic with a particular ending in mind. For this one, the journey was the focus more than the ending. But I think the ambiguity works. Nothing is fixed, but they’re trying.

And that’s what listening to the tape at the end is about. The tape is Dean’s way of trying to communicate with Cas. But Cas didn’t really get it before. Now Dean is trying to help him to understand. I considered including lyrics at the end. But the scene isn’t about the lyrics, the lyrics could be anything, it’s about the fact of them listening together.

[sirfrogsworth]

I think I might have a highly controversial answer to this.

And my answer is influenced by how highly regarded the movie is compared to my experience with it. And it may not be the worst movie as far as the quality of the filmmaking, but it was the most angry I have ever been after watching a movie.

*drumroll*

Or as I like to call it... "Math Homework: The Movie"

So many people have said this is one of the best time travel movies ever made. And I just don't get it. There is literally no person who understood this movie on the first viewing. I had to watch a YouTube explanation video that was nearly as long as the actual movie to kinda/sorta understand it.

There is that Einstein quote, "If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself."

I'm not sure that is entirely true, but I think it should at least be true for a movie. Donnie Darko also made me angry for the same reason. I thought I was an idiot because I didn't know what was going on. But then I watched the director's commentary and he was like, "I'm not entirely sure what is going on." He didn't understand his own movie!

I know some people like puzzles and that is probably what they liked about Primer. It was a very detailed and well-thought-out time travel puzzle. They clearly thought a lot about how the time travel worked. It was something fun to figure out for people. This was a big point of pride for the director saying he didn't want to "dumb down his movie." But that isn't what he did. Making something incomprehensible is not the opposite of dumbing it down.

And if you are going to have a convoluted plot that people cannot understand on the first viewing, you can at least make the movie entertaining in other ways. But this movie had horrible visuals, some very stiff performances, and the non-puzzle parts of the plot were just not that interesting. "Hey, they played the stock markets! Let's watch some capitalism unfold!" And the whole white knight party scene just made me cringe. It was especially concerning considering the director was later found out to be abusive to his ex-girlfriend. Was he saving the girl in the movie from a version of himself? Very meta.

I didn't really understand Tenet, but at least it had explosions and backwards fight choreography. I will give Primer a little credit for shooting the movie for $7000. But I still think the visuals could have been much better. Even if it was just better composition and interesting camera angles. You can do a lot of creative things purely in how you frame your shots.

I am not personally interested in a movie where I have to take notes and draw diagrams to understand the plot. I just want to absorb it and be entertained.

That said, I have no problem if others liked that aspect. If you jumped for joy when assigned math homework, this movie was made for you

So I will say this was one of the worst films for *me* to watch, but not the worst film in general.

[assassinnumber9]

For the Director's commentary game...(pretty please!) from one of my favorite fics, Loid Forger is NOT a Cuddler:

Oh boy! Chapter 3 of Cuddler was probably one of the most difficult chapters for me to write, possibly tied with chapter 2 as I am neither a child nor a dog but had to basically go into what a child and dog would think/act like lol

It's been awhile since I wrote this one, but I do remember thinking as I was typing that Loid Forger would absolutely be the one to have a full conversation and/or argument with a dog (because it's canon as seen in Ch 58 of the manga). And because Cuddler is set after Loid and Yor are officially together and know each other's identities, I wanted to make Loid be open to admitting pretty much anything that wasn't the fact he was a cuddler - this time being that he spoiled everyone in the apartment way too much as well as how he enjoyed the hustle and bustle of family life.

This chapter was particularly difficult to write in terms of description, as the reader pretty much knows the apartment already. So, I had to rely on little details to make the flow not so choppy and to give a break from the quick and simple dialog, and what I decided to focus on instead was the sounds around the apartment simply because going from being by yourself to having a family involving a young child and a wife with a loud, annoying siscon of a brother would be a big change.

And the other way around is also correct - going from a full apartment to complete quiet with the exception of a pretty chill dog.

I remember writing it and wanting to capture how Loid, after so long of being a family man, would find the quiet now uncomfortable and unsettling, and so I added him reminiscing after Bond became distracted by the food in front of him as dogs do lol

I honestly think it's interesting how chapter 3 of Cuddler has been a favorite of at least a couple people I know while it's one I'm still uncertain of myself, but I did have fun writing this cute little scene! The Loid and Bond duo are always just so cute!

A little fun fact about Bond's meal - it used to be the one I fed my mom's dogs when I had to petsit. Now, they just straight up eat chicken from a can. That was actually a big inspiration for this scene, because those two are so spoiled.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little commentary! Thank you for the submission! 💕

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

🌟

I reblogged this ask game and then failed to finish the answers to any of the asks i got. whoopsie. better late than never.

Anyway let's try the director's commentary of the train king scene from pez dispenser debris.

I love the train king intro. it's so fun and goofy. it's just got some really fun humor to it in my mind. I had so much fun writing it.

it is a completely pointless scene.

It has no plot relevance. Train king is not the chekov's gun hanging bravely on the wall of that fic. It will have no overarching effect on the plot. So why the fuck is it there?

Well, because it was fun.

Pez dispenser debris has lived in my head for at least two or three years now. Not in the exact form it is now, but it's a very old and much-adored story of mine. I was incredibly fond of it. I tried to write it years ago, and got as far as the first scene, which was originally Izuku and Mirio walking along the street and running into the bus hijacking, which led to the rogue quirk.

It was a good starting point. It's where the action actually started. But it just didn't feel right to me.

So it sat in my drafts for a long time, collected dust, and I spun my wheels on other projects for a while. I went back to it, and tried again, and the new first scene was Izuku rushing in late for the meeting with the realtor. It still didn't feel right. it gave more development to Izuku and Mirio's relationship before we hit action, but something just wasn't right.

Train King was just a silly reason i made up for why he was late. The scene originally wasn't shown, only mentioned in a single sentence. And then I decided--fuck it, it would make for a fun scene. just do it for shits and giggles.

And I had fun writing it. Which means it's probably the only reason why i hit publish on pez dispenser debris to begin with instead of leaving it in my drafts. Because I was in a state of extreme burn out when i started writing that fic, and the train king scene led me to realize what that fic needed to be for me: just something fun and silly to write.

Technically speaking, pez dispenser debris is very sloppy. There's a huge amount of pointless asides and flashbacks that don't contribute to the plot in any way. the entirety of chapter four could be deleted and it would be the exact same fic if i just slightly edited the conversation between aizawa and izuku in chapter six. I legitmately wrote chapter four, said "wow, that was pointless," and hit publish

because I liked it anyway. Like, what the fuck is the point of the backflip treaty? Dabi's extremely reluctant semi-redemption? Absolutely nothing. I just had a good time writing it and thought other people would have a good time reading it.

it wasn't meant to be """"good"""" art. it was meant to be fun, and that's what it was. I had so much fun writing my silly little flashbacks and asides. All of my fics have those kinds of background stories and scenes that exist in their "universe," and most of them never make it into the fics because it wouldn't be plot relevant and it wouldn't make for """"good""" art. With pez dispenser debris, I wanted to just give myself permission to write something fun and silly with as many pointless scenes as i wanted. And train king started that.

[knifeeater]

director’s commentary for bruise pristine? >.< literally reread it this morning. thank u for my life ily <3

hi, ily 💕

so, little backstory, when i was listening to tvl on audiobook half awake i fever dreamed a combination of the lestat & armand palais de royal fight/tower scene where they actually hate fucked to the point that i was of the hard conviction it actually truly happened in canon for like half a year. daniel molloy tv programme voice 'can he make his dream a reality?'

smth i really wanted to focus on was fear and resentment, not only because it is so defining for their dynamic, but also becomes smth metaphysical, transmutating, erotic. it helped me to understand their characters so much by reading them through the prisms of each other, and the absent gravity well of louis between them. their initial encounter figures to me as a violent turning point in both of their vampiric existences that hooks upon their opposing forces. for armand, who's a creature of the mind and lives an almost disembodied, quasi-spiritual interned life to this point is broken down by lestat's physical violence, the first thing that truly touches him in centuries, a crack that opens him to the horrors of his past. lestat has lived his life so far through the power of his body, his strength as the sword he uses to cut through the world to pave his way. armand's mental powers are something he can not physically grasp or defend himself from, reaching somewhere inside he does not want to go because he needs to keep himself contained, a horror of loss of control that reaches back far into his past as well. this power of armand as something ephemeral and uncanny is what made me realize that this is, for lestat, what the witches' place revolves around, so that is where he sinks in his delirium at the end ('sorcière, feu d'un ange de la mort' - 'witch, fire of an angel of death').

i love a slide on spatial & temporal registers, so the repetitive framing device of the rain and the trees came very easy, the dark forest full of wolves, the savage garden, paradise lost, indifferent nature, ruins and history, sacrificial blood and the living grave. the mask of death was a small allusion to the mask of red death and the king in yellow, the facade of civility and nobility lestat likes to keep up and the beatific, static face armand puts on, rotting away. when they come together they're naked, so to speak, broken down and bare. lestat has none of his physical strength and armand's mind is frayed and vulnerable. because of louis, the gravity centre of both of their worlds, who is always in the rafters in this. it was interesting to me, that the only way they could come together was in that broken down state and to frame their encounter around both of them losing their center with no one but each other to blame.

i also just really wanted some top on top violence. lestat's masculinity is so very fragile and hinges on him occupying a dominant role, so it was extremely fun to break that down a bit and have that desire for submission be pleasurable exactly IN the shame and debasement that comes with it, while not losing his bite. this kind of violent sexuality is something very unique to them and opened up a potential for dissolving the limits of the vampiric body in vulnerability/expansion, in the way that violence and erotics and emotion rip apart and grow into each other. it was way more dynamic and visceral than what i usually write for loumand, really enjoyed the change of pace.

last 'fun' fact to close this out, 'neutral, static life' comes from having read clarice lispector's 'the passion according to g.h.' at the time and integrating her idea of losing the ego in the processes of life, emptying out the superiority of vampire blood and mixing it into the soil.